From June 29 to July 1, 2015, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), hosted the Systems to Family Stability National Policy Academy meeting in Washington, D.C. at the Loews Madison Hotel. Eight teams (seven states and one county) participated in this kick-off meeting for the dynamic, 18-month policy academy that is designed to build collaborative systems within and across agencies to improve family economic security. The Academy has three primary objectives:
1) Build career pathways through job-driven training and alignment of TANF and workforce systems;
2) Improve business processes and systems coordination; and
3) Enhance case management by understanding brain science and applying two-generation approaches.
Over the course of the three-day meeting, experts presented the research evidence base, and sites had the opportunity to learn from peer programs’ development and implementation across these three objectives. In addition to plenary and breakout sessions, the agenda included eight hours of dedicated team time for sites to receive individualized coaching and facilitation from technical assistance coaches and expert content faculty.

This brief establishes the basics of readiness using the R=MC2 (Readiness = Motivation × General Capacity and Intervention-Specific Capacity) heuristic, examines some of the policy implications of readiness, and identifies directions for future research. Although a scientific body of knowledge about readiness already exists, there is a need to develop more concrete recommendations for federal agencies and practitioners to use when implementing evidence-based interventions.

This assessment sought to provide a clear picture of recent changes implemented by local program managers to improve performance, several years after the initial wave of change brought about by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The legislation and related regulations included several provisions that strengthened the program’s work participation requirements.

This resource includes data from each state’s TANF work participation rates, which measure how well states engage families receiving assistance in certain work activities. States must meet an overall and a two-parent work participation requirement to avoid a potential financial penalty. The statutory requirements for FY 2012 are 50% for all families and 90% for two-parent families, but a state’s individual target rates equal the statutory rates minus a credit for reducing its caseload.

On June 22, 2015, the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance (OFA) convened the Strengthening Collaboration between TANF and WIOA National Experts Roundtable in Washington, DC. The roundtable brought together a select group of practice, policy, and research experts to discuss the opportunities and challenges that the new Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) system offers to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participants, programs, and systems.

This monograph summarizes findings from a review of the research literature on implementation and proposes frameworks for understanding effective implementation processes. The results of this literature review and synthesis confirm that systematic implementation practices are essential to any national attempt to use the products of science — such as evidence-based programs — to improve the lives of its citizens.

ImpleMap is an interview process to map the current implementation landscape of an organization. It assists implementation specialists in collecting information to inform active implementation planning and development. It was developed by the National Institute for Implementation Research to increase implementation capacity in organizations new to active implementation.

The Hexagon Tool, developed by the National Implementation Research Network, is an interactive graphic that can help practitioners select evidence-based interventions and prevention approaches by reviewing six broad factors in relation to the program or practice under consideration. It can be tailored to a variety of settings and programs.

As an evaluation and planning tool, this resource provides an implementation team the opportunity to assess, plan, and track stage-based activities and improve the success of implementation efforts. The goal of the tool is to help practitioners produce action plans to improve access and outcomes for their participants.

Implementation Drivers are the key components of capacity and the functional infrastructure supports that enable a program’s success. This newly revised assessment tool can be used by implementation teams during any implementation stage of an innovation.